The Devil and Drusilla

by Paula Marshall

  Next he dragged him on his back into the middle of the floor to lie there as he had done since he had been captured. He then put on the other robe and the devil’s mask himself. Finally he pulled out of his breeches pocket his two shirt strings which he had twisted together to strengthen them—and waited for Wattie.

  Fortune had been with him for Wattie returned almost immediately carrying the third robe and the second devil’s mask.

  ‘Good work,’ he said approvingly at the sight of Bart apparently dressed ready for the ceremony. ‘And quick work. The Mass has already begun and we shall be sent for soon.’

  He stared at the supposed Devenish. ‘What the devil is he doing lying on the floor again?’

  ‘Got cold feet,’ grunted Devenish hoarsely. ‘Swooned.’ He thanked God that Bart was a man of few words and those barely understandable.

  ‘Has he, now? Not so brave after all.’

  He kicked the supposed Devenish hard in the ribs and when that did not answer, bent down, and grunted angrily ‘Come on, man, wake up…’

  He got no further. He had presented Devenish with a perfect target, allowing him to do to Wattie with his shirt strings what he had done to Bart with the rope. When Wattie’s struggles had subsided he pulled him into the corner and flung the third monk’s robe over him.

  He had neither the time nor the need to dress him up.

  Panting slightly, for he had not eaten properly since he had been captured, and exhaustion was beginning to claim him, Devenish pondered on what he might do next.

  He decided that there was nothing for it but to try to escape through the Great Hall. Chance had aided him so far. He had to pray that chance would aid him again.

  Wattie had been telling the truth. Leander Harrington had been determined that sacrificing someone as important as Devenish to His Satanic Majesty should be done in as splendid a style as possible. This night’s work would begin a new era. There would be no more skulking in crypts.

  The altar had been set up at the far end of the room between the door which led to the kitchens and the door which led to the small Entrance Hall. It was covered in a black velvet cloth trimmed with silver. Mr Harrington himself stood directly behind it, clad in his robes as Apollyon. They, too, were of black velvet. He wore the traditional devil’s mask which had the face and horns of a goat. Parson Lawson stood before the altar ready to begin the ceremony. He was wearing a mask similar to those which Wattie and Bart were to have worn.

  On the altar was an upside-down cross and a silver chalice which contained red wine. In front of the altar, as in church, benches for the Mass’s congregation had been set out with a wide aisle between them. Light was provided by flambeaux: giant fiery torches which were fixed in the metal holders which had been part of the Great Hall since medieval times.

  At the far end of the room was the heavy door which led to the living quarters of the Abbey, including the room containing the cell in which Devenish had been held prisoner. Flambeaux were fixed, head high, on either side of it. Devenish had to pass through this crowded room before finding freedom.

  Difficult though it would be he concluded that it might be easier to escape from it than it would have been to free himself from the crypt. All the same, he had no real idea of how he was going to accomplish this. Chance, he told himself, as he ran towards the Great Hall, chance must be my guide.

  It had, however, already helped him when Bart had left one of the robes behind. Successfully working Gabriel’s trick with the confining ropes and then escaping would have been much more difficult if he had had both Bart and Wattie to deal with at the same time, instead of being left alone with Bart. He could not really hope that chance might favour him twice in the same night.

  Perhaps he could sneak in and hide among the congregation in the Great Hall, and then slink away in the confusion which would surely follow when Bart and Wattie failed to arrive with the sacrificial victim. Thinking so, he pushed the door to the Hall open—and found himself in a splendidly lighted room.

  He paused, for he had expected gloom. He must change his plan. In any case, simply to sneak away would still leave Harrington unscathed and himself without any real evidence of his villainy. Once Harrington discovered that he had escaped the only sensible thing for him to do was to disband the Brotherhood, destroy any evidence, and deny all of Devenish’s accusations, claiming that he had lost his reason.

  Devenish looked at the twin flambeaux and he looked at Mr Harrington standing, arms uplifted, behind the altar. Parson Lawson was droning away in a mockery of the real Mass. The expectant congregation must be all agog waiting for yet another human sacrifice.

  And as Devenish did so, inspiration struck.

  Praying that when Harrington saw him he would believe he was either Wattie or Bart come betimes for some unknown reason, he snatched up the flambeaux, one in each hand, and walked up the aisle towards the altar.

  He was halfway up it when Mr Harrington at last noticed him.

  ‘Begone,’ he cried dramatically, pointing in Devenish’s direction, seeing him as only one of his henchmen in his ceremonial robes. ‘Put down the lights. Your time is not yet. The messenger has not been sent to fetch you.’

  Devenish took no note of him and continued to advance.

  Mr Harrington roared, ‘Brothers, I bid you seize this man so that I may deal with him as he deserves.’

  No one so much as moved. They stared at Devenish, many of them suspecting that this mysterious stranger might be an emissary from the Pit itself. They had called on the Devil often enough—and now they seemed to have been successful. Fearful, they watched him advance until he stood immediately before the altar, the flambeaux now extended before him.

  ‘I am not your messenger, nor am I Man, either,’ cried Devenish in as deep and hollow a voice as he could assume. ‘I am the Devil, the Great Lord Sathanas himself, come from Hell to reproach you for troubling him with your piddling concerns. Damnation and hellfire await you, but you may have a taste of it now.’

  So saying, and remembering how Mr Harrington had boasted of slowly murdering the poor dead girls, and his ordering of the deaths of Jeremy Faulkner and his own valet, he threw one flambeau straight at him, and the other on to the altar. The first set Mr Harrington’s goat’s mask and robes on fire, the second burst open, pitch and flames flowing from it. It rapidly began to consume the altar cloth and the robes of Parson Lawson.

  Confusion followed as the flames flowed in the direction of a congregation which feared that it had succeeded only too well in its repeated invocations of the forces of evil. Panicking, some of them began to shout ‘Fire’ as they made for the nearest doorway which might lead them to safety.

  Devenish, who was ahead of them, turned right to run through the door to the Entrance Hall. Behind him the congregation, stumbling and stamping, scuttled towards the door, knocking one another over in their haste. Others, braver or more stupid, whichever way you cared to look at it, tried to extinguish the blaze…to no avail.

  The flames which had engulfed Leander Harrington next attacked the hangings behind the altar. The fire was rapidly running out of control; smoke and burning soot filled the air. Those unfortunates at the back of the panic rush towards salvation began beating out the hot flames which were now leaping on to their clothing, before they reached the open air where they rolled on the grass to try to put out the murderous and unforgiving fire. Toby Claridge was among them.

  The servants in their quarters above the stables at the back of the house—the Abbey had no attics—came running to help them, alerted by the light of the fire and the noise made by the survivors.

  No one dared to enter the Abbey itself, although some brave souls fetched pails of water from the stables and threw them—unavailingly—on to the outskirts of what was now a major conflagration.

  Fearful that what had been engaged in might yet be revealed, the survivors made for their horses and began to gallop down the drive towards home, safety and anonymity.

&nb
sp; Devenish knew nothing of this. He tore, barefoot, through the gardens, flinging off his robes and mask as he ran by a devious route towards the main gates of the Abbey. He was sure that they would have been left open ready for the return of the congregation to the homes which they had desecrated by taking part in Mr Harrington’s fatal mummery.

  It had been a conspiracy of brutal murder, and he was sure not only that he had ended it, but also that he had done so in such a way that open scandal would be avoided. All that remained was to try to return secretly to Tresham Hall to ensure that he could not be suspected of having any connection with what had occurred at Marsham on this fatal night.

  Devenish could not regret what he had done for both Harrington and the Brotherhood deserved to be punished for their wickedness. They had corrupted not just one another but the poor girls whom they had exploited and whose families would fortunately never know what their daughters had been engaged in—but neither would they ever know that those who had used them so ruthlessly had been punished for their wickedness.

  He hid himself in the trees just short of the gates and watched the remnants of the Brotherhood stream by before he set out for home himself.

  A mile down the road he began to stagger as exhaustion claimed him—just as the flames from the burning Abbey were bursting upwards into the night sky. The only thing which kept him going was the thought of Drusilla and the future which he hoped to share with her.

  ‘Are you quite well, my dear?’

  Drusilla looked up from the book which she was not reading, and said pleasantly, ‘Oh, yes. I’m a little low because I’m very worried about Giles.’

  She was, of course, not being entirely truthful. She had spent a quiet day worrying not only over Giles, but where her duty to Hal lay. She had hoped against hope that Rob Stammers would reappear with good news, or, better still, that Hal would come riding along the sweep to the front door, ready to be wryly amused by their joint concern about him.

  No such luck. Giles still lay in his semi-coma. Hal’s whereabouts remained dubious. She knew that her manner had been so subdued that Miss Faulkner thought that she might be sickening for something.

  After an early dinner Miss Faulkner proposed a game of backgammon which, contrary to her usual habit, Drusilla lost. Miss Faulkner decided to retire early, leaving Drusilla alone. She discarded the book she was too distracted to read, deciding that she would follow Miss Faulkner’s example when the door opened and Giles’s nurse burst in.

  ‘Oh, mum, you must come at once. Master Giles has recovered and is calling for you. I wonder that you could not hear him downstairs. He says that he must see you immediately.’

  Drusilla gathered up her skirts and ran full pelt upstairs, the nurse thundering behind her. She could hear Giles shouting, and entered the bedroom to find him sitting up. His eyes were huge in a face, which had been thinned by illness, and instead of being pale his cheeks were red again. His hands were plucking nervously at the bedclothes.

  ‘What is it, Giles? What’s the matter?’

  He said, almost incoherent in his haste, ‘Alone, Dru. I must speak to you alone. I must, I must, and now.’

  She went to sit by him to take his hands in hers. ‘Gently, Giles, have you been having nightmares that you are so distressed?’

  ‘No nightmare, Dru—or not of the kind you think.’

  He was shaking so violently that Drusilla sent the protesting nurse from the room.

  ‘Now you may speak freely, Giles. But slowly, so I may understand what you are trying to tell me.’

  He passed his hand over his eyes and sank back against his pillows. ‘Oh, Dru, when I woke up I remembered what poor Betty was trying to tell me when I last saw her!’

  It all came tumbling out of him. ‘She told me that she had taken part in secret meetings at Marsham Abbey which had been organised by Mr Harrington and in which some of the local gentry took part. They were masked, she said, so that she couldn’t name them. At first she and the other girls thought it was all a bit of fun, just the gentry enjoying themselves. Only one of the girls ever took part in a ceremony in the crypt. The others were given good food in the house while they waited until it was over. The gentlemen then joined them in the house, ate and drank and…enjoyed the girls.’

  Gradually Giles began to grow less agitated and to speak more slowly and coherently, his hands still in Drusilla’s.

  ‘She said that all the girls who took part had been given money and a special necklace. When the girls began to disappear, one by one, those who were left were told by a man called Wattie that they had been given money to go to London where, because they had been so obliging, well-paid work waited for them—and that the same would be done for them when their turn came.

  ‘Betty quite looked forward to going to London herself until her friend, Kate Hooby, came to her one day and told her a dreadful tale. One of the footmen, who later disappeared, had told her that it was all a tale: the gentlemen, he said, had been worshipping the Devil. The girls had never gone to London. Instead, those who had taken part in the ceremony itself had been murdered, sacrificed on an altar, he said. He also told her that Mr Jeremy Faulkner and Mr Harrington’s valet had been killed because they had threatened to report Mr Harrington and his friends to the authorities.

  ‘Betty and Kate thought it must be a story, because no one would ever do such terrible things—until Kate disappeared. Kate’s father told Betty that she had left her clothing behind and that he had found money and a necklace in her room. Betty knew that Kate would never have gone anywhere without them, so she decided to tell me what she suspected so that I could ask Devenish whom she knew to be my friend to look into the matter. Only…just as she finished…and I was assuring her that I would tell Devenish…nothing.’

  He stopped. ‘I remember nothing after. I suppose that she talked too much, someone became suspicious, followed her and found her with me. They must have killed her on Mr Harrington’s orders, and left me for dead, too, so that we should not inform on them. Oh, Dru, we must tell Devenish immediately.’

  He was so agitated that Drusilla did not dare to tell him that Devenish might also be missing.

  Instead she said, as calmly as she could after hearing such a shocking tale, ‘I’ll see that a message goes to Tresham Hall immediately. Now, lie down and try to sleep. You’ve done your duty by poor Betty. But you must promise me one thing. Speak to no one about this, no one at all. Not Cordelia nor any of the Cliftons. Not only for your own safety but because you won’t want to put anyone else at risk.’

  Giles nodded, and slid down into the bed. ‘I feel so much better now I’ve told you, Dru. It was queer. When I woke up it was as though it had happened only a moment ago. I was trying to comfort Betty, and then—nothing—until I found myself in my own bed. How long have I been asleep?’

  Drusilla told him. He shook his head. ‘I can scarcely believe you. But I must.’

  ‘Lie down,’ she said tenderly, ‘and try to sleep.’

  He did as she bade him, leaving her to stand there, shocked beyond belief by his dreadful tale. Could Betty’s story possibly be true? If it were not, then she would have to believe that Betty had invented it—and that was not possible. An uneducated country girl could not have known of or imagined such a thing as devil worship and human sacrifice. Her story had the ring of truth.

  Drusilla remembered as she ran to her room that the doctor had said that it was possible that Giles didn’t want to wake up—which now seemed highly likely. She went straight to her escritoire and tore open Hal’s letter—in the light of what Giles had just told her he might already be dead or dying if the letter confirmed that he had discovered the truth about the poor girls, Jeremy and the valet.

  Dreadfully the letter confirmed all—and more—of Giles’s story. It must be sent to Lord Sidmouth as soon as possible, but she—and Rob Stammers when she told him the news—dare not wait for him to take action if Hal were to be found alive. She rang for her maid, told her to lay out
the breeches, shirt, jacket and boots which she had worn to ride in before she had married Jeremy, and to send word to Vobster that he was to have two horses saddled immediately.

  Her maid stared at her. ‘It’s gone nine of the clock, ma’am. Are you sure you wish to go riding now?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she snapped. ‘Do as you are bid.’ Every moment lost might put Hal in further danger if—dreadful thought—he were not already dead.

  Vobster was equally argumentative. ‘At this time of night, ma’am? To Tresham Hall? In the dark?’

  ‘At once,’ she shouted at him for the first time in her life. ‘Immediately. There’s a full moon and a clear sky—we shall be able to see our way without any difficulty. We have no time to lose. And Vobster, tell no one where we are going, and make as little fuss as possible. And saddle Pegasus with Giles’s harness. I don’t want a side saddle—it will slow me down too much.’

  He eyed her resignedly. Either the mistress had run mad or he had. He could not be sure that he was hearing her aright.

  Ten minutes later they were thundering out of the main gates to Lyford House as though the Devil himself were after them.

  Devenish was finding his long walk back to Tresham Hall growing harder and harder. He had not eaten properly since he had been captured. His body was covered in bruises from Wattie’s mistreatment. He even thought that Wattie might have cracked two of his ribs.

  His feet had begun to bleed and only the thought that he must reach Tresham before the news of the fire at Marsham Abbey had the whole county in a furore kept him going. Above all he must try to sneak into Tresham before anyone saw him in his present condition. Which, he conceded wryly, was going to be nearly as difficult as escaping from Marsham Abbey had been.

  He was almost at the end of his strength and was trying to prevent his tired body from lying down of its own volition, when he heard horsemen approaching behind him, riding fast and furiously.